The Little Horses
by HeartFout
Summary: Tzeentch and the Deceiver play one of the most complex games ever created. But when a new player enters, have they met their match? CRACKFIC.


**The little horses.**

The chessboard was at least sixteen dimensional, and partially sentient. The pieces moved around the board mostly by their own accord, and minor things like linear time couldn't be assumed to be acting at any one point. Earlier, for instance, one player's Lord (like a bishop, but can only move along diagonals made in five dimensions) had just had his crazed charge across the board halted by a Prince who was thought to have been lost fifty turns previously but in fact had been sent forward to this stage in the game, partially because of the relativistic effects of high speed travel, and partially because the laws of physics had tossed their hands up and gone home muttering to themselves.

On the outer reaches of the game board, eldritch horrors stretched their tentacles across it. At least a hundred squares had been taken over by a rogue pair of Queens, who had ignored the strict gender rules of their kind (one king, one queen) and eloped. Rebellions among the pawns kept having to be shut down by force, and a group of imperial guardsmen, mistaking a small outcrop of the board that only had up, down, left, right, front, back and linear time for an asteroid and had set up a base, which was now under siege by the Knight Alliance in their Rook armada.

It was not, under any circumstances, a board that any mortal could play on. Most immortals got a headache and tried to leave after about the twentieth turn. In the end, only two individuals would play the game, both of them managing to be more twistedly brilliant than each other. Until now that is.

Tzeentch, the ruler of change, currently in the form of an albatross for reasons known only to it, raised a webbed foot and pushed a protesting Sorcerer (Like a bishop, but can only move along squares that produce the same wavelengths of colours. This particular one has to be over one producing the emission spectrum of hydrogen, making it quite useful, given that hydrogen is by far the most common element in the universe) three squares to the right, six up, and three charm (seventh dimensional movement, along the positive alpha axis). He gestured silently to his long time opponent that it was his turn, and began plotting a way of capturing a large area covered in what appeared to be a cabbage farm.

His opponent, the Deceiver of the C'tan, moved a Wraith (like a knight, but can only move in the fifth and six dimensional planes) forward and captured one of Tzeentch's Lesser Horrors which he had left unprotected. It leaned back on the chair like thing it was sitting on (basic verbs like this lost meaning a while ago, but it is the closest the English language can get to what it was actually doing) and waited.

They had a new player, and he was old. He was older than the stars that the C'tan was born out of. He had watched so many things die. He had brought death to so many things. He wore a black cloak, hood over his face, with only his eyes, shining like distant supernovae, visible in the darkness. He was old, and wise. Maybe, just maybe, he could challenge them. Maybe, just maybe, he could kill them. The thought sent a thrill down each of their equivalents of a spine. Such a test! A being he could not be controlled, like a puppet on a string! A being that could see their plans and move against them before they could even make them! Oh yes, this was promising. They had thought so since the moment he had introduced himself to them, and asked to join in the game. When the Deceiver had asked if he was sure, the figure gave the enigmatic answer of "It can't be harder than bridge." An enigmatic answer! A true enigmatic answer! Tzeentch could usually work out an average of fifty six thousand, two hundred and thirty three point four extra meanings a phrase could have than the original speaker meant, but even he wondered what this `bridge` game was. Maybe they could move onto that, once this game had finally given up it's secrets. That could take a while though, since this game was designed by beings who lived on things thrown from left field, from nasty surprises, from, at the very basic level, unpredictability.

Namely, Tzeentch.

The figure raised a hand, which was had gone beyond nothing but skin and bone to simply bone, and tapped one of the figures lined up in front of him. And then he spoke, with a voice like the sound a gravestone makes when it falls.

REMIND ME AGAIN, said Death. WHAT DO THE LITTLE HORSES DO?

**AN: A crackfic I thought of while revising quantum mechanics for my physics exam. Hope you enjoyed it.**


End file.
